


Found in Translation

by galateaGalvanized



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha-17 might be trapped in Legends but what if he WEREN'T, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28904004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galateaGalvanized/pseuds/galateaGalvanized
Summary: "He calls me Kote because it's what he named me. Kot'ika is just the diminutive: little Kote. Littleglory," Cody explains, and it comes out more bitter than he'd intended. "I'm the one who chose Cody instead.""Because it's easier to pronounce?""Because he named me Kote as an insult, and I wanted to be more than that."
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 51
Kudos: 445





	Found in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> The Mando'a is translated at the bottom of the fic, but trust me: all of it is eventually explained in the prose. Since the plot hinges on language-learning, I'd **_strongly encourage_** you to learn it alongside Obi-Wan if you don't know the translations already!

"Ahh, _su'cuy, Kot'ika_!"

Cody’s foot pauses an inch off the ground, frozen in place. He only manages to swallow a curse because Obi-Wan is at his elbow, and despite their friendship, there are some standards of professionalism that he still won't bend. As he turns around, he sees Obi-Wan don the smile of polite curiosity that has deceived thousands into thinking Obi-Wan is a nice person.

"Yeah, I’m still alive," Cody agrees warily, using Basic for Obi-Wan's benefit. "Despite the Seppies' best efforts."

Around them, troopers are clearing away the dust and metal shards littering the floor. The Battle for Kamino had not been kind to Tipoca City, and both the 212th and the 501st are sticking around to help with repairs. It’s their home to protect, and their home to rebuild. 

Sidestepping a crew carrying a chunk of duracrete, Alpha-17 tilts his head to reveal blaster marks along the side of his teal-striped helmet. Cody wonders absently where he was when the fighting broke out.

“Keep it that way, eh? Don’t want my work going to waste,” Alpha-17 says, and Cody abruptly decides that he doesn’t care.

At his side, Obi-Wan coughs, folding his arms into his sleeves and turning up the brightness of his smile. “Cody, if you could introduce us?”

Alpha-17 turns to him with a snap, and there's prurient interest in every line of his posture.

“Oh, don’t mind _Cody_ , General,” Alpha-17 says with obvious relish, and Cody would fight Ventress all over again if he could be anywhere but here. “I never could teach him manners. I’m Alpha-17.”

Obi-Wan extends a hand, as cordial as any top-tier negotiator, and his smile widens when Alpha-17 takes it. “It’s an honor to meet one of my commander’s instructors. I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

"There’s no need for modesty. I think everyone here knows who _you_ are."

Was that—flirting? Did Alpha-17 linger a bit too long on that handshake? Cody shakes himself; this was no time for old grudges, and he hardly needs to be protective of a Jedi. Still, he’s got one of Obi-Wan’s bad feelings about this.

"It's good to see you, Alpha-17," Cody lies, "but the general and I were—"

"Oh, I'm sure the great Marshal Commander Cody can spare me a few minutes," Alpha-17 interrupts. "Congrats on your promotion, by the way. You haven't changed a bit, have you, Kot'ika?'

Beneath his bucket, Cody flushes, and he knows, he _knows_ that Alpha-17 is just trying to get him riled up: to make Cody prove him right. Obi-Wan is watching the two of them with his eyebrows slightly raised, striving to appear polite but clearly fascinated. Cody needs to get them out of there ASAP.

"This war has changed us all," Cody says at last, as noncommittal as he could. “So we—”

"Yet you're still out there doing anything to be the hero. I really named you well—or don't you remember?" Alpha-17's voice drops into the sing-song rhythm of a drinking song as he says, " _Mhi draar baat'i meg'parjii'se_."

Then, his eyes cut to Obi-Wan, and Cody's stomach turns over with dread in anticipation of whatever Alpha-17 is going to say next.

Alpha-17 grins. " _Tion ra_ gar’ori'ramikade _Kote lo'shebs'ul narit_?"

Cody feels the blood drain from his face and the breath erupt violently from his lungs. He'd be surprised if he weren't shaking slightly, frozen in place and shocked beyond rational thought and straight into outrage. He can only watch as Alpha-17 laughs and tosses him a jaunty salute before turning and strolling, casual and carefree, past Cody and his general.

"Maybe we'll meet again, General Kenobi," Alpha-17 says, and he’s halfway down the hallway behind them before Cody manages to spin on his heel and shout.

"Wait!" No response; Alpha-17 just keeps moving. "Damn it, fine— _pare_. _Ke pare_ , Alpha!"

Cody has his fingers dug into the neck seal of his armor by the time Alpha-17 stops and turns his head, the lines of his helmet in sharp profile over his shoulder. Cody works his own helmet free in the next second, his breath coming in short angry bursts, and then he tosses his helmet to the floor.

“ _Haar'ke'sirbu gar ures'buy'ce_ ,” Cody grinds out, pushing the Mando’a out from between his clenched teeth. It's been so long since he's needed those exact words, but they still come to him as naturally and easily as throwing a punch.

Alpha-17 laughs again, and, even through the visor, Cody knows his eyes are tracing the line of the scar curling over the left side of Cody's face. "You sure, Kote? I've taught you this lesson before."

When he had been younger, Cody would have followed up with an insult, overeager and stubborn, but he really has changed. Now, he just stands his ground, silent and fuming.

"Tomorrow morning, 0800 standard, Training Room Cuir," Alpha-17 says at last, and Cody's heart beats a steady song of triumph. "Bring your general, if you like."

He vanishes down the hallway without another word, and Cody, at last, comes back down from whatever terrible high he’d been riding. He looks over at Obi-Wan, and he feels a blush creep up the back of his neck when he sees Obi-Wan’s eyebrows almost to his hairline. _Stang_.

“My dear commander,” Obi-Wan says, wary but practically vibrating with curiosity, “would you care to explain to me what all that was about?”

The blush keeps climbing. Cody bends down to put his bucket on before red blotches can overtake his face.

“It was—it was entirely unprofessional of me,” Cody says when he's safely behind his visor, and the shame starts to sink in. Damn, but seeing Alpha-17 had made him feel all of five-years-old again, desperate to prove himself and tired of being told ‘no’. “I sincerely apologize, General. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Well, whatever it was, it was a depth of emotion that I’ve never even come close to feeling from you before, Commander,” Obi-Wan says, and he gently takes Cody’s arm and pulls them back towards the landing dock of the _Negotiator_. 

Cody starts to protest. “Sir, we need to finish the infrastructural damage review.”

Obi-Wan eyes him, and Cody resigns himself to a series of uncomfortable, unavoidable discussions. His general has a deeply unfortunate love of mysteries, and Cody has just delivered a new one right to his front door.

“I’ll comm Boil. We can let the lieutenants who didn’t get up close and personal with a Sith handle the inspection.”

They don't even go by Cody's quarters, where he might have been able to escape; Obi-Wan leads them straight to his personal rooms, and he sets the kettle to heat before Cody can even get a word in edgewise. Defeated, Cody sits at his usual chair by the table they use for project planning, already regretting every word that had come out of his mouth in the last hour and every time Ventress threw him into a wall in the last twenty-four. His bones hurt. Honestly, his _everything_ hurts, and now he has to go get his ass kicked by Alpha-17 in the morning.

Obi-Wan hands him a steaming mug of tea with a splash of milk turning it a warm caramel brown, and Cody sighs in resignation and takes it.

"I truly am sorry for my behavior earlier, sir," he says into his tea.

"I'm sure you had your reasons, Cody," Obi-Wan says, and then he hesitates, just enough for Cody to look at him with concern.

"Sir?"

"Have I been saying your name incorrectly?" Obi-Wan asks, and oh, of course that's what would be bothering his general the most. Not the fact that he just saw his commander challenge another clone to a fistfight, but whether or not he'd been mispronouncing a _name_. "Alpha-17 kept calling you Kote, or Kot'ika."

Cody closes his eyes. He can't even manage a laugh at Obi-Wan's terrible Coruscanti accent.

"He calls me Kote because it's what he named me. Kot'ika is just the diminutive: little Kote. Little _glory_ ," Cody explains, and it comes out more bitter than he'd intended. "I'm the one who chose 'Cody' instead."

"Because it's easier to pronounce?"

"Because he meant ‘Kote’ as an insult, and I wanted to be more than that."

Obi-Wan sits down at last, breathing over his tea to cool it, and Cody's vehemence hangs in the air like a heavy spice. He hadn't realized how deep this wound ran in his heart until now. A thoughtful silence settles over them until Obi-Wan looks up, cautious.

"Then please forgive my ignorance, Commander, but I don't see how being named for glory is an insult. To be honest, I can see how the word might come to mind, watching you in action," Obi-Wan says, and Cody fights not to duck his head at the praise. Obi-Wan is just making it worse, at this point.

"No, that’s not it. There's no word for 'hero' in Mando'a," Cody says, and he hears the echo of Alpha-17 in his words even now. "To attain glory is laudable; to seek it is immoral."

"Hmm. The near-contradiction reminds me of the Jedi Code."

Cody barks a short laugh. "It's not as much of a problem for a Jedi to be overly competitive, I think."

"Oh, you'd be surprised." Obi-Wan’s smile has taken on a cryptic, thoughtful edge. His eyes are looking at something very far away. "Being overly competitive in lightsaber combat nearly stopped me from becoming a Jedi. I was passed over by all the Masters for padawanship, in fact."

"They passed over _you_?" What idiot wouldn’t want _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ as their padawan?

"Apparently I was 'overly aggressive'," Obi-Wan quotes ruefully. "It seems we were both a bit hot-headed when we were younger."

And he could be right, but it’s more than that for Cody. Aggression wasn’t discouraged in clones, but they weren’t supposed to want to stand out. Quite the opposite, in fact, and Alpha-17 had made sure he knew it.

"I wanted to be the best," Cody says. It feels like an admission of guilt, even as Obi-Wan watches him with that steady, knowing compassion. Cody has to look away to continue. "But Alpha was wrong: I have changed. These days, I just want to make sure as many of us get out alive as I can."

The ship around them hums, steady and vast, full of people that Cody desperately wants to keep living and breathing and moving through her hallways. He jumps when he feels Obi-Wan reach over and cover Cody's hand with his own, warm and calloused against Cody’s skin.

"You want to be the best so that you can protect them the best," Obi-Wan says. "And there's no shame in that."

Cody breathes out a sharp, grateful exhale, and he reaches for his usual dry humor with effort. 

"Well, then you can keep being overly aggressive towards the Seps, sir. I won’t tell," he says wryly, and Obi-Wan sits back with a chuckle.

"Yes, quite. Now—are you going to tell me what Alpha-17 said to you to make you so angry? Any Mando'a I learned was a decade ago, and I clearly don't have the vocabulary I used to."

Somehow, Cody had almost—almost—managed to forget what had led to this uncomfortable heart-to-heart. He bites back another curse, even more unwilling, now, to provide Obi-Wan with an accurate translation. He wants to claim that it isn't important, that it doesn't matter, but he can clearly see that it _does_ matter to Obi-Wan, sitting patient and concerned across from him.

Cody swallows.

"Do you know the lyrics to ' _Buy'ce gal, buy'ce tal_ ', sir?"

He gets another soft hum, and Obi-Wan's eyes close as he searches through his memories. The man's like a walking encyclopedia of different cultures and languages. It's faster to ask him than it is to search the holonet on missions sometimes. To be frank, Cody's a little surprised and not a little grateful that Obi-Wan didn't immediately recognize it when Alpha started singing.

"That's a Mandalorian drinking song, isn't it?" Obi-Wan asks at last. "I only know the translation in Basic, I'm afraid. Qui-Gon and I didn't spend much time in pubs while we were on the run on Mandalore."

And suddenly, without prompting, Obi-Wan breaks into the most beautiful tenor that Cody has ever heard.

"A pint of beer, a pint of blood,  
Buys men without a name.  
We never care who wins the war,  
So you can keep your fame."

It takes Cody a long second to focus on the words instead of Obi-Wan's voice. The number of things that he's good at is just—it's almost frustrating at this point. Cody wonders absently when he'll stop being shocked by each new Obi-Wan discovery, and then, reflexively, he hopes he never does.

"Cody? Is that the one?" 

Cody has to shake himself out of his slight reverie. "Sorry, sir. Yes, that's the one. But the last line is different in Mando'a."

"What is it instead?"

" _Kote lo'shebs'ul narit_ ," Cody recites, and he isn't a coward, he _isn't_ , so he's not going to walk out of Obi-Wan's rooms and off the side of the _Negotiator_. He still hates every single word that's about to come out of his mouth. "It means—uh, respectfully, sir, it means 'you can shove your glory up your ass'."

" _Kote_ , was it," Obi-Wan says, rolling the word around in his mouth thoughtfully, and even though it’s not his name any more, Cody fights back a shiver to hear him say it like that. 

Obi-Wan frowns suddenly. "But that's not what Alpha said, not exactly. He added something."

Kriffing hell, could this man please be less observant off the battlefield? Watching him piece together the truth is as painful as watching a LAAT/i fly into cannonfire—and he’s still waiting on a response.

" _'Gar'ori'ramikade'_ , sir," Cody says stiffly, and he'd rather take a blast from an AT-TE than translate that one. It's the last piece of information that Obi-Wan would need in order to put together the full translation, and Cody _will not_ —

The dawning light of understanding in Obi-Wan's eyes is like a death knell.

"Your general," Obi-Wan translates, and Cody wants to hunt down whoever taught him that particular phrase, be they from ten years ago on Mandalore or within the GAR. "And he made it a question, with ' _tion_ '. He said, 'Or is your general shoving glory up his—’"

Thank every star in the sky, Obi-Wan cuts himself off before finishing that sentence. Cody would eat his bucket for the chance to melt into the floor right now, or to think of a lie convincing enough that Jedi powers couldn't catch it: anything to not have to explain.

Then, amazingly, Obi-Wan starts to smile.

"Cody, did you challenge him to a duel over my honor?" Obi-Wan asks, sounding delighted. "That's remarkably chivalrous of you, my dear."

All of Cody’s words are caught up in the mess of indignation and concern and surprise clogging up his throat. When he can speak at last, he says, “Sir, please, he implied—”

“I’m well aware of what he implied, Cody. And although sleeping with you would hardly be a hardship, let alone dishonorable,” Obi-Wan says, and Cody chokes on air, “I regret the implication that your promotion was due to anything but your brilliance in the field.”

“ _Sir—_ ”

“Unless you disagree?” Obi-Wan asks mildly, as if commenting on the weather on Naboo instead of, say, asking if it would be a hardship for Cody to sleep with him.

“ _No_ ,” Cody says, too loud and too sudden, and he decides to revisit his earlier decision against walking off the _Negotiator_. Stang, but he thinks he used to be professional. He remembers being marginally intelligent, at the very least. He closes his eyes and prays to whoever’s listening for strength. “No, that’s not. That’s not why.”

“Then I look forward to seeing you defend our joint honor in the morning,” Obi-Wan finishes. He looks oddly smug about his conclusion, like the lothcat who got the cream, and Cody almost can’t bring himself to add one more regret to the pile. 

And yet.

“I’m not going to beat him, sir,” he says helplessly. 

The chrono on his wrist says that they’ve been at this for almost an hour. It feels like it’s taken a year, like his accelerated aging has kicked into triple time. The artificial light coming through the windows is starting to redden, and he’s probably going to have to remind Obi-Wan to eat again, even though he’s not sure he’s going to be able to look his general in the eyes once he leaves this room.

Obi-Wan stands to refill the kettle. It’s a sign that he thinks the hard part is over: that the battle plan is watertight and the enemy all-but-conquered. He’s not usually this wrong.

"Cody, please. I've seen you roundhouse kick the head off a droid—sometimes multiple droids in a row, with one kick. Don’t be modest."

Cody shrugs; he's not being modest, he's being realistic. 

"The only people who'd have a chance against an Alpha are the Nulls and the Jedi, sir," he admits. "But I couldn't just let him walk away."

When Obi-Wan gets back to the table, he’s holding two more tea balls and a freshly steaming kettle of water. Cody holds his refilled mug in his hands, letting the steam curl around his face as he breathes it in. It’s a small comfort paired with some larger ones: Obi-Wan’s still talking to him, and he doesn’t think there’s a court martial in his future.

Just a humiliating defeat.

“Hmm. What was it you said to him, to stop him from walking away?” Obi-Wan asks, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes that always spells trouble. Cody hopes it’s the kind of trouble that’s gotten him and the 212th out of more scrapes than he can count, and not the kind that’s gotten them _into_ even more scrapes than that.

“I said, ‘Say that to me without your bucket.’ It’s a challenge to an unarmed, unarmored fight. I’m not sure even a Mudhorn would stand a chance against that katarn armor, so.”

“So you leveled the field, and he gave a time and place in response. And then he said, what was it…” Obi-Wan’s smile widens, and Cody is suddenly sure that that look is the ‘get _into_ trouble’ one. Cody clutches at his tea as Obi-Wan continues, “He said, ‘Bring your general, if you like’.”

-—-

At 0750 the next morning, just outside of Training Room Cuir, Cody is trying desperately not to stare at his general kitted out in what looks like a modified set of blacks. 

“You’ve been holding out on us, General,” Cody says, gesturing to the curve of Obi-Wan’s biceps under the slacks.

Obi-Wan laughs and starts stretching, bending side to side and pulling his arm across his chest. “You can’t always rely on the Force, Cody. Some things need a direct approach.”

“You won’t be using the Force?” 

Cody isn’t one to doubt his general, but that's going to make this a lot harder.

“You said the challengers needed to be unarmed and unarmored. I rather assumed the Force would count as both.” Obi-Wan smiles at him then, small and secretive. It’s one of Cody’s favorite looks. “The secret to good negotiating is to abide by the rules to the letter, you see. And I always play to win.”

Whatever Cody might say next is interrupted by the tell-tale thud of heavy boots stalking down the hallways. Once, Cody could recognize a commando by the length and weight of their stride, but he hardly needs that memory to know who’s coming towards them now.

“Ahh, Kot’ika,” Alpha-17 says when he comes into sight of them, voice muffled through the vocoder of his helmet. “Here I was thinking you might not show. I’m sure your _duties_ keep you very busy—but I suppose General Kenobi’s here to keep you in line.”

Cody has no idea if there was intentional innuendo in that or not, and he doesn’t care. His impulse control is much better than it used to be, but there’s just something about Alpha-17 that gets to him. Katarn armor or not, he’s seconds from starting the fight early. 

He’s punched General Grievous out, after all. Katarn armor can’t be that much harder.

“And to assist, of course, thanks to your very generous invitation,” Obi-Wan says, and his voice is as sweet and smooth as honey running over uj cake. 

This, at last, seems to shake Alpha-17 out of his smug superiority. He gives Obi-Wan a once-over, and his gaze holds more shock than leer. “You’re here to fight?”

“Oh, yes. The affront was to both his honor and mine, I’m afraid,” Obi-Wan explains apologetically, and Cody has to tamp down the glee rising up his spine. It’s always a wonder to see Obi-Wan’s Negotiator mask come into play for something that is, quite frankly, rather petty. 

Alpha-17 tilts his head, and Cody can feel his disdain and disgust even through the shield of Alpha-17’s visor.

“So little Kote went crying to daddy, huh.”

“ _Nayc_ ; _kar’tayli Mando’a_. _Ru’suvari gar’jorhaa_ ,” Obi-Wan says, and even his abysmal Coruscanti accent makes Alpha-17 jump. Obi-Wan may only know a little Mando’a, and he might only understand what happened yesterday because of Cody, but Alpha-17 doesn’t need to know the specific truths. “I also understand that I may not use the Force in this fight. I hope you’ll accept my word on that account.”

After a second’s thought, Alpha-17 at last removes his helmet, sinking his fingers into the seal until the armor depressurizes and he can lift the helmet piece up. He stares at Obi-Wan, who looks half his size even though he's the same height as both the clones. Under the scrutiny, Obi-Wan crosses his arms in front of him and holds each elbow with the opposite hand. It’s a pose that Cody has seen him use often in his Jedi robes; it makes him look smaller, somehow, and considerably less of a threat. Before this moment, Cody hadn’t realized it was a de-escalation posture. Now, it’s more like bait.

“Fine,” Alpha-17 says at last, and he starts snapping the clasps on the other pieces of his armor as he stomps into the training room. “But I’m not going easy on you just because you’re a general, Kenobi.”

Behind his back, Obi-Wan winks obnoxiously at Cody, and Cody thinks that today will have been worth it, if only just for that.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Obi-Wan calls out cheerfully, and then it seems like seconds later they’re squaring off on the mat. 

The foam is sturdy beneath Cody’s bare feet, hard and familiar and a source of untold bruises in his youth. The mat reaches almost to the edges of the training room, at which there’s a short gutter so that cleaning products and bodily fluids can be easily rinsed away, and then an unforgiving duracrete wall. The room itself is a square, maybe 15 feet long on each side. Alpha-17 seems to dwarf the space.

Cody had told Obi-Wan that the rules were simple: fight until someone calls mercy or either team falls unconscious. No more; no less.

“Easy enough,” Obi-Wan had said.

But it isn’t easy at all.

Obi-Wan and Cody are both strategists by nature, so they wait, patient, to see what Alpha-17’s first move will be. To be frank: they almost miss it. His first move is _fast._ Cody would revel in the rare sight of Obi-Wan being surprised if he weren’t suddenly fighting for his life.

Alpha-17 leads with a quick jab and a right hook, and Cody manages to block both of those before an uppercut gets him in the gut, right in the solar plexus. The move paralyzes his diaphragm, and he’s immediately winded, back-peddling rapidly until he can pull in a breath. Kriff, but he’d thought he’d do better than _this_. Fighting through the feeling of suffocation, he at least manages to slip past a thrown elbow and block Alpha-17’s knee before it can connect with his stomach.

Cody falls into the meditative mindset that he uses in a firefight: there’s no thought, just block and throw and get space. He’s slower than his opponent, though, and they both know it. Alpha-17 hooks a foot behind one of Cody’s knees, and Cody goes down—but he at least manages to bring Alpha-17 down with him. His triumph lasts only until Alpha gets Cody’s arm up held out in a pin, locking him in place and slowly starting to restrict his airway. Then, suddenly, one of Obi-Wan’s hands is on Alpha-17’s neck, and the other is at his waist. In a maneuver too fast for Cody to follow, Obi-Wan flips Alpha-17 over his hip. Alpha-17 keeps his grip on Cody until he hits the mat, when Cody uses the distraction to shove himself away.

He pants, getting his bearings, and trying to think. Had Obi-Wan purposefully waited to intercede? To give Cody a chance to prove himself wrong?

When he looks up, Obi-Wan is just barely managing to hold his own. He’s clearly well-trained in some classical martial art; Cody can see the pattern of katas in his movements. To Cody’s unpracticed eye, it looks like it might be Tae-Jitsu, but it’s more advanced than anything Cody’s ever seen. In direct opposition to Obi-Wan’s clean lines, Alpha-17’s playing dirty, and Cody holds his breath as Alpha-17 goes in for a low tackle. 

He’s fast, but so is Obi-Wan. The Jedi ducks out of the way of the dash, grabs onto Alpha-17’s shoulder, and throws him to the ground. And yes, Alpha-17 goes down, but it’s clear he’d expected something like that. He grabs onto Obi-Wan’s free arm as he goes down, and, in a twisting ground-grapple, he starts to overpower Obi-Wan with his sheer, unparalleled mass. 

Fortunately, that mass makes him easier to hit. Cody delivers a roundhouse kick to his unprotected side, right across both kidneys, and Alpha-17 chokes. Obi-Wan jerks his hips up with enough force to roll Alpha-17 into the air and off to the side, and Cody—

Cody tries to not be distracted by it himself.

They end up on three corners of the mat, staring at each other with considerably more wariness. Obi-Wan grins at Cody, then, and his teeth must’ve cut his lip when he fell. His teeth are red, and there’s blood at the corner of his mouth, and Cody can’t breathe for the love of him. It’s like being hit in the solar plexus, all over again.

In front of them, Alpha-17 falls back into a defensive posture, rolling his neck and shrugging his shoulders as he does. “Alright,” he says. “Round two.”

They go. Cody and Obi-Wan fall into a tandem rhythm this time, and it’s somehow just like and more than how they fight on the battlefield. There’s a rush to it, a—a _glory_ —like being part of an ancient Mandalorian warrior pair, always knowing where the other is, anticipating his moves. It’s exhilarating.

After another few minutes of grappling, though, they’re back on the floor, locked in a stalemate. Alpha-17 has one arm around Cody’s neck—but Obi-Wan has one leg locked around Alpha-17’s. Cody’s scrabbling at the inexorable grip around his throat, but he’s starting to lose feeling in his fingers, and his thoughts are turning sluggish. Black is creeping in at the edges of his vision, popping intermittently with multicolored stars. It’s fine, though. It’s _fine_ ; if he goes out, Obi-Wan will still carry the day. It’s a familiar, well-worn thought, and it’s a faith that’s gotten him through much worse than this.

Through the darkening haze, Cody hears, at the very edge of consciousness: 

"Stop." Obi-Wan's voice is like thunder. "We give."

The arm around his neck loosens immediately. Air rushes back into his lungs and his brain in a burst of giddy relief. He pulls in one breath after another, desperately grateful and still trying to figure out which direction is up. He rolls off Alpha-17 and onto his hands and knees on the mat, wheezing.

It's a small satisfaction to realize that Alpha-17 isn't that much better off, coughing and shaking from a foot away. Their ceasefire lasts a long minute, each person trying to get enough oxygen to remember how language works. Eventually, Obi-Wan pulls his legs in underneath him, as if he’s about to start, meditating, and the look on his face is one of only mild regret.

Alpha-17 stares at both of them as if trying to unravel a puzzle of his own. He laughs, then, wild and surprised, and it’s Cody’s turn to stare. At last, Alpha-17 rolls to his feet and reaches over to clap Cody on the shoulder.

“Looks like you found yourself a keeper, Cody,” he says, and Cody blinks at the use of his real name. Before he can respond, Alpha-17 turns to Obi-Wan. “And you, Jedi— _ke kar’tayli Kote darasuum_.”

He leaves after that, limping slightly, and they listen to the sound of him snapping his armor back on outside in stunned silence. When his footsteps at last fade down the hallway, Obi-Wan turns to Cody with a small, self-satisfied smile.

"I think that went well, all things considered," he says.

Cody laughs and begins the laborious process of trying to stand. The world shakes slightly as he gets his feet under him, and then he goes to extend a hand to his general.

Obi-Wan takes it gracefully, wrapping his fingers around Cody's forearm and pulling himself up with a wince. As he's dusting himself off, he asks the question that Cody's been waiting for.

"What did he say to me, before he left?"

Cody tamps his joy down, compresses all his relieved laughter, and he tucks it behind a small smile of his own.

"Well, ' _ke_ ' makes something an order," he explains, and Obi-Wan nods. "So, literally, he said, 'Hold glory in your heart forever'."

Obi-Wan eyes him speculatively, sensing another mystery to crack. “If that's the literal translation, what does _'kar'tayli darasuum'_ mean colloquially?”

Cody's smile widens, but he doesn't give Obi-Wan the answer, this time. He just thinks it, helplessly: _I love you. I love you, too._

-—-

 **Mando’a Translations** (with endless thanks to Mandoa.org) **:**

"Ahh, su'cuy, Kot'ika!" — Still alive, little Kote! (colloquially, 'su'cuy' is just 'hi')

"Mhi draar baat'i meg'parjii'se." — We don't care who the victor is.

"Tion ra _gar’ori'ramikade_ Kote lo'shebs'ul narit?" — Or is _your general_ the one shoving Glory up his ass?

"Pare. Ke pare!" — Wait. Wait (emphatic)!

“Haar'ke'sirbu gar ures'buy'ce.” — Say that to me without your bucket (i.e. helmet).

Cuir — Four

“Nayc; kar’tayli Mando’a. Ru’suvari gar’jorhaa.” — No; I know Mando’a. I understood your words (lit. speech).

"Ke kar’tayli Kote darasuum." — Hold Glory in your heart forever (lit.) / Love Cody (actual significance). It should also be noted that the word for 'to hold in the heart', kar'taylir, is the equivalent of the Mando'a word for 'to know'... ah, love: the mortifying ordeal of being known.

**Author's Note:**

> WHEEZE, alright, thank you for reading! Any feedback is absolutely loved. You’re also welcome to come find me on tumblr under the same handle, [galateaGalvanized](https://galateagalvanized.tumblr.com/)! I’d love to get to know the fandom better, and I post WIPs and art there.
> 
> (Also, a brief note, the only thing I know about Alpha-17 is that he’s the one that almost took out a bunch of kids during the Battle of Kamino, saying, “They grow up loyal to the Republic, or they don’t grow up at all.” I therefore characterized him as ‘an asshole’... and I didn’t look much beyond that.)


End file.
